1944

1845–1958	Germany [earth sciences]	German naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt lays the basis of modern geography with the publication of Kosmos/Cosmos, in which he arranges geographic knowledge in a systematic fashion.
1940–1949	USA [statistics and demography]	Immigration into the USA for the period 1940–49 stands at 856,608.
1940–1944	USA [everyday life]	A large-scale migration of people from rural areas of the USA to the cities creates major urban problems.
1942–1945	USA [World War II (1939–45)]	During the war, US women are recruited on a large scale for the war effort; between 1942 and 1945 the number of working women increases by 50%.
1944	USA [technology]	The US mathematician Howard Aitken builds the Harvard University Mark I, or Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator. The first programme-controlled computer, it is 15 m/50 ft long and 2.4 m/8 ft high, and its operations are controlled by a sequence of instruction codes on punched paper that operate electromechanical switches. Simple multiplication takes 4 sec and division 11 sec.
1944	England [fiction]	The English novelist Joyce Cary publishes his novel The Horse's Mouth.
1944	France [fiction]	The French writer Jean Genet publishes his first novel Notre Dame des fleurs/Our Lady of the Flowers, written in prison.
1944	Germany [literature and language]	The German philosopher Ernst Cassirer publishes An Essay on Man: An Introduction to Human Culture.
1944	Russia [orchestral music]	The Russian composer Sergey Prokofiev completes his Symphony No. 5.
1944	Netherlands, USA [painting]	The Dutch-born US artist Willem de Kooning paints Pink Lady.
1944	USA [philosophy]	The US social philosopher Lewis Mumford publishes The Condition of Man.
1944	USA [photography]	The US Eastman Kodak company produces Kodacolor, a colour negative film which makes it possible to take colour pictures with a reasonably cheap camera.
1944	France [plays]	The play Huis Clos/In Camera (in the USA No Exit), by the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, is first performed, in Paris, France. It contains the famous line ‘hell is other people’.
1944	UK [schools]	The 1944 Education Act in England and Wales introduces primary, secondary, and further education, sanctions the Eleven Plus examination, provides for a raised school-leaving age of 15 (16 as soon as possible), and makes religious education compulsory.
1944	USSR [administration]	The Soviet leader Joseph Stalin acts to re-establish communist rule in the USSR's non-Russian European regions. Using the pretext that various ethnic groups have collaborated with the Germans, he orders mass deportations and annuls autonomous regions.
1944	USA [ballet]	The US composer Aaron Copland completes his score for the ballet Appalachian Spring, with choreography by Martha Graham. It is first performed the same year in Washington, DC.
1944	USA [chemistry]	The role of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in genetic inheritance is first demonstrated by US bacteriologist Oswald Theodore Avery, US biologist Colin M MacLeod, and US biologist Maclyn McCarthy.
1944	UK [chemistry]	British biochemists Archer John Porter Martin and Richard Laurence Millington Synge invent paper chromatography.
1944	Austria, UK [economics]	The Austrian-born British economist Friedrich von Hayek publishes The Road to Serfdom.
1944	UK [welfare]	Family Allowance is introduced in the UK: it is a state payment to mothers for each child.
23 January 1944	Norway [births and deaths]	Edvard Munch, Norwegian painter of pyschological subjects such as The Scream, dies in Ekely, near Oslo, Norway (80).
27 January 1944	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Soviet forces clear German troops from the Leningrad–Moscow railway line, ending the German siege of Leningrad after 900 days and over 1 million civilian deaths from starvation and enemy action.
9 February 1944	USA [births and deaths]	Alice Walker, US novelist, author of The Color Purple (1983), born in Eatonton, Georgia.
19 February - 26 February 1944	Germany, UK [World War II (1939–45)]	German aircraft make their heaviest raids (known as the ‘Little Blitz’) on London, England, since May 1941.
20 February - 27 February 1944	Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	During ‘Big Week’, a combined US–UK air assault on German aircraft-making capability, 18,874 tonnes/20,799 tons of bombs are dropped on selected targets in Germany.
20 February 1944	Norway [World War II (1939–45)]	Saboteurs blow up a ferry on Lake Tinnsjo, Norway, destroying Germany's entire supply of ‘heavy water’ (for use in atomic research).
11 April - 18 April 1944	USSR, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Soviet forces clear all of the Crimea, apart from the port of Sevastopol, of German troops.
11 May - 18 May 1944	Italy, Germany, Poland [World War II (1939–45)]	Allied forces finally break through the German Gustav Line at Monte Cassino, Italy, with Polish troops storming the monastery on 18 May. The German defeat enables Allied troops at Anzio to break out of the beachhead, and clears the way to Rome.
14 May 1944	USA [births and deaths]	George Lucas, US film director and producer, born in Modesto, California.
26 May 1944	Syria [women's rights]	There are street riots in Damascus after the Syrian government permits women to remove their veils in public.
6 June 1944	France, UK, USA, Canada, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	D-day marks the start of Operation Overlord. Allied forces (British, US, and Canadian) land on five beaches in Normandy, northwest France, against heavy German opposition.
13 June 1944	UK, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Germany launches the first V1 (Vergeltungswaffen, ‘retribution weapon’) pilotless flying-bombs from mainland Europe against London, England, in retaliation against Allied bombing of German cities.
22 June 1944	USA [legislation]	The US president Franklin D Roosevelt signs the Servicemen's Readjustment Act, also known as the GI Bill of Rights. The act guarantees veterans a wide range of benefits, including money for college tuition and low-cost home mortgages.
1 July - 22 July 1944	USA, Germany, Japan [diplomacy]	The Bretton Woods Conference in New Hampshire draws up financial plans for the post-war world after the expected defeat of Germany and Japan.
20 July 1944	Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	An abortive assassination attempt is made on the German Führer Adolf Hitler in his Rastenburg headquarters. The planter of the bomb, Count Claus von Stauffenberg, is shot the same evening.
28 July 1944	USSR, Poland, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Armies of the Soviet 1st Belorussian Front recapture the city of Brest-Litovsk (now Brest), on the Polish-Soviet border, concluding Operation Bagration. The huge Soviet offensive has virtually destroyed German field marshal Ernst Busch's Army Group Centre.
19 August 1944	England [births and deaths]	Henry Wood, English conductor, founder of the Promenade Concerts (the ‘Proms’) in 1895, dies in Hitchin, Hertfordshire, England (75).
21 August - 7 October 1944	USA, China, USSR, UK [diplomacy]	At the Dumbarton Oaks Conference in Washington, DC, China, the USSR, the USA, and Britain draw up proposals for a new world organization, the future United Nations (UN).
21 August 1944	France, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	Allied troops encircle a large concentration of German armoured forces to the south of the town of Falaise, northwest France, as US forces link up with the steady British and Canadian advance southwards. Some 50,000 Germans are captured.
17 September - 28 September 1944	Netherlands, USA, UK [World War II (1939–45)]	In Operation Market Garden in the Netherlands, US airborne troops land at Eindhoven and Nijmegen to seize bridges over the rivers Maas, Waal, and Rhine (Market), while British troops land at Arnhem on the Rhine to open a route to the Ruhr region in Germany (Garden). The landing at Arnhem is a disaster.
14 October 1944	Germany [administration]	Erwin Rommel, German field marshal who commanded the Afrika Korps during World War II, chooses to commit suicide, in Herrlingen, near Urm, Germany, to avoid being prosecuted for his part in the attempt to assassinate Hitler on 20 July (52).
20 October 1944	USSR, Yugoslavia [World War II (1939–45)]	Soviet and Yugoslav troops capture Belgrade, the Yugoslav capital, from the occupying German forces.
20 October 1944	Philippines, USA [World War II (1939–45)]	General Douglas MacArthur of the USA, forced to evacuate the islands on 12 March 1942, fulfils his celebrated promise to return to the Philippines.
12 November 1944	Norway, UK, Germany [World War II (1939–45)]	British bombers sink the last German battleship, Tirpitz, in the Tromsö fjord, Norway, enabling Britain's large ships to be released for service in the Pacific.
16 December 1944	Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium [World War II (1939–45)]	German forces launch the Battle of the Bulge, or Ardennes offensive, against the Allies in the Ardennes, a wooded plateau in Luxembourg and Belgium. It is the last major German offensive of World War II